Benny Green Trio

MUSIC - RECORDS

November 26, 1993|By Parry Gettelman of The Sentinel Staff

**** Benny Green Trio, That's Right (Blue Note): Benny Green's fourth album is another pleasing effort from the 30-year-old pianist. His crisp, engaging style is buttressed by a tremendous rhythm section. Twenty-year-old Chris McBride is an uncommonly mature bassist, playing with great imagination and a wonderfully rich tone. Drummer Carl Allen locks himself deftly into the groove.

Green is at his best on uptempo numbers. He creates a fleet, sparkling new melody line on ''Ain't She Sweet?,'' and he shines on Bud Powell's ''Celia,'' especially in a solo section, and on his own ''Just a Tadd,'' a tribute to bop-era pianist Tadd Dameron.

On McBride's ''Hoagie Melt,'' Green's light touch is like foam on McBride's dark, heady brew. Green's solo version of the '30s song ''Something I Dreamed Last Night'' is romantic with a bittersweet edge.

The great Oscar Peterson has taken Green under his wing, naming him his official protege and winner of a $10,000 prize from the Glenn Gould Foundation earlier this year. That's Right makes it clear Peterson's patronage is well-merited - and that it can't be long before Christian McBride establishes himself as a leader, too.